A Typical House A Manny story
by Robansuefarm
Summary: This is a peek into the off camera life the Manny family has been living in California since their departure from the show until their July 2009 return.


A Typical House: A Manny Story

It was a typical house on a typical street in a typical California town. It was never meant to be a dream house, a forever house. It was a some place to live house, a fresh start house and their finances had been up and down so much in the last 10 years before they'd bought it that they had to have her father co-sign the loan. He hadn't wanted to take the help, but it was either that or touch her education trust fund and he absolutely refused to do that. He intended that eventually she'd go back and finish school and so he had taken the offered help with better grace than anyone who knew him would have expected. It still rankled though and he was now far ahead in the payments and had done a lot of work on the house both inside and out, much of it by himself, until it was something of a showplace in the neighborhood, to make it his own in spite of the help he had taken.

He had inherited enough of his parent's taste that the house was showy but elegant with just a touch of new money. His masculine taste prevailed in the front room, the dining room, and his study, the rooms where they dealt with outsiders. Her taste prevailed in the rest of the house where the family lived. Everything was simple, quality, and homey, the sure sign of Maureen Bauer's influence (except for a couple of drawers that were all their own in their bedroom that they kept locked away from little eyes and little fingers).

 * *

Young tow-haired Robbie Santos bustled into his father's study. He thought the 3rd grade certainly was harder than 2nd. He had a project he wanted his Dad's help with and he wanted to be all ready when he came in. He pushed up at the sleeves of his Cubs baseball shirt. It was just like his Dad's and they always wore them to watch Cubs games together. Robbie carefully arranged his work space on the table Daddy had for him and Hope to the side of the room. He arranged the poster board, markers, etc. Mommy always told him that it was important to have a place for everything and everything in its place. He took his time, knowing it would be a bit before his dad got there.

Robbie had peeked into the kitchen on his way by and seen his dad with his arms wrapped around his mom from behind, kissing her neck and giving his throaty laugh, the one he saved just for Mommy. Some kids his age might object to their parents acting like that, but Robbie still had a dark memory of a time when they'd stopped and he wasn't about to let that happen again. He was glad to see it now and he knew Mommy would kick Daddy out of the kitchen soon anyway so he could help him. She'd want to have supper waiting when Megan's mom dropped off Hope from her play date and Mommy always said she never could get anything else done with him around once Daddy started that laugh. Robbie looked at the clock, Hope would be home in about 30 minutes. He always knew right where his younger sister Hope was. Mommy and Daddy had said it was his job to watch out for her and he took his duty very seriously.

 * *

"Hey, Tiger, Whatcha working on?" Danny looked down with pride at his son. "Blonde like Michelle, Aunt Meta," he thought as he ruffled his hand in his son's hair. He thought how when he was his son's age he never could have imagined his life turning out as well as this, as happy as he was, and he shook his head thinking how he had almost let it slip through his fingers more than once, but never again, _never_ again.

Robbie was talking. "I'm doing a project for school, Daddy, and I want your help."

"Sure. What's the project?"

Proudly he said, "I'm making a family tree."

And there it was, just when he least expected it, the exceptionalism of his family hit him again. Sometimes it was exceptionally good, like when Ed took the kids and he and Michelle had the house to themselves and could unlock those special drawers and sometimes exceptionally bad, like this when he was suddenly faced with explaining his family history to his son.

"Buy time," he thought. "Buy time."

"Tiger, this looks like a lot of work. I think we ought to get your Mom's help too and that means after supper. Why don't you go help her finish up in the kitchen?"

Robbie looked up prepared to argue. He wanted to work on it now, but looking up, just for a second, he saw the steel flash in his father's eyes and he knew from experience it didn't pay to try to argue when Daddy looked like that or even to try to understand right then why he looked like that, you just did what he said. Robbie sighed. It _would_ be nice to have both of his parents' attention and help later. He got up and ran off to help his mother.

 * *

Danny took a second to admire how his son had laid out his equipment, everything exactly so. He smiled as pride came back upper most, thinking how Michelle's habits from medical training showed up in their son. Then he scowled and picked up the assignment sheet. He walked over to his own desk and got out a legal pad out of the drawer and set it and the assignment sheet on the desk set blotting paper. He buried his face in his hands for a second and rubbed it. He barked out a short hollow laugh. He thought, "How can someone who aspired to a Masters Degree be so unnerved by a Third Grader's homework."

Scowling down with all his natural dark intensity at the sheet of paper on his desk, Danny looked every inch the young mob prince that he once had been. He rolled his head back against the headrest of his desk chair, arching his neck. Slowly he closed his eyes and opened them. He shook his head sending the almost long enough to curl again ringlets flying. He had learned the hard way that you couldn't ignore your problems away and he'd better have something worked out before Robbie asked him to help again. He glanced at the clock, just under 30 minutes until Hope would be home and Michelle would want to eat dinner. Michelle and he liked to tell each other that they had gotten through the bad stuff and that they were just like a typical family now. Well, they were as typical as they were ever likely to get and as far as almost everyone in California knew they _were_ just another typical boring suburban family. He remembered once when he was desperate to push her away, he'd told Michelle he'd be bored to tears in this kind of life. He'd known it was a lie then, but just how wonderful it was, how much he loved his life, and enjoyed it every day he couldn't have imagined. Typical. Did most "Typical" fathers know exactly where their children were at all times because his basic faith that they would be OK had been shattered by both his children having been kidnapped before? Did most "Typical" fathers have to wonder just how old their children should be before he could explain the concept of rape to make the story of their lives together, how they started out, why Carmen had hated Michelle so much, make sense? Did most "Typical" fathers have to tell their children that someone as close as their grandmother, their uncle had tried to kill their mother? Yeah, they were "Typical" all right. Then he smiled his perfect smile. Were most "Typical" couples still in love as much as they were? Were most "Typical" families as happy as they were? The answer to those two questions was no, too, and it did make up for the rest.

He picked up a pencil and wrote Family Tree on the top of the page. Then falling back without thought on how his mother taught him to handle problems he turned the page and wrote Rules at the top. When you had a problem you didn't know what to do about, you created rules to handle it. He flipped back to the first page and read through the assignment sheet. He wrote down Robbie's name first and the day he was born. That was easy enough. That had been one of the best days in his life. He remembered holding his newborn son in his arms and swearing he'd never lie to him. He'd pretty much kept that promise and it was one of the things that made this so hard. He could pretty up a family tree to make it 3rd Grade and Teacher friendly easily enough, but he couldn't lie to his son. Even if he wanted to, he knew soon, within a couple of years now, he'd have to tell him the complete story. Too many people knew, too much was in the public record. It was almost a dead certainty that eventually his children would find it all out and if they did, it had to come from their parents, not any of the dozens of worse ways that he had imagined them finding out. Whatever he told Robbie about the family past now had to match up with what he told him then. All of that history PLUS a realization that his father had lied to him over a stupid homework assignment would be too much. What he told him now had to be true, or it would only make it worse.

He drew a sibling line and put down Hope's name. Her date of birth wasn't nearly so happy. They'd thought they lost her forever and they very nearly had. Thank God for Dinah telling him the truth. That at least was a story he didn't need to deal with now. He drew a line down and put down his and Michelle's name. He loved writing her name, he loved saying her name, Michelle Santos. Michelle, how could one little word be filled up with everything so wonderful, so perfect? Then the first true poser came. He checked the sheet and he had to include it. Date of Marriage. Which marriage? Did he put down all 6 of them? He thought about Ray and how he said they'd always been married since that first church ceremony where Ray served as his best man. The legal manipulations didn't count, in the eyes of the church that was their wedding date. Following the tenets of his faith wasn't really lying, was it? He'd always felt married to Michelle from that day on, no matter what their legal status. He flipped to page 2 and under rules wrote 1. Follow Catholic tenets regarding marriage. He smiled pleased with how he'd handled that. He quickly wrote down the date of their first wedding, the justice of the peace, the one that had saved Michelle's life, with a note "Civil." Then he wrote down the date of the church wedding just over a month later and added "Church." The others were really vow renewals anyway he reasoned. He could tell Robbie that with the explanation that there were also legal issues. The divorces _were_ legal issues, he'd had to pay Ross Marler enough over the years for his _legal _services because of them. There, that looked very neat and tidy.

Danny drew another sibling line from Michelle's name. He'd do her side first, it had to be easier. That was Rick. The next stumper for the neat little 3rd grade worksheet was Rick's multiple marriages. He had to include Rick's children, too. Well, that meant he'd definitely have to include Mel for Leah, and Harley for Jude. He'd use "Co-habitat" for Harley. Harley and Rick _had_ lived together after all. It was after the fact, but it looked a heck of a lot better on a poster than drunken one-night stand. How many other times had Rick even been married? Most of them had been before he had met Michelle and he wasn't sure he even had a firm fix on the count. "No wonder," he thought wryly, "Rick believed that Michelle and I could find other spouses. He certainly always did." He could leave it as it was, but then he thought about Abby. She had fallen out of their lives, busy with her work on behalf of the deaf, her new life in Washington, and they were too close to Rick in her heart for them to be easy together anymore. She still sent birthday cards and presents for the children and a nice newsy letter every Christmas, all of which he noted she still signed Abby Bloom Bauer. Abby had been like a sister to Michelle. Abby had been the one of Michelle's family he had felt closest too. She had been great. Yes, Abby deserved to be remembered, even if it was only on poster board, but that was enough. He added to the rules.

2. Listing 3 marriages is enough.

Another line and then he wrote Maureen's name down. Maureen Reardon Bauer who would have loved me, he automatically added. Michelle was always saying that. He hoped it was true. He had grown to love Maureen as Michelle had slowly made her presence in their lives as real to him as she was to Michelle. He often thought the same thing about Papa, that he would have loved Michelle, but he never said it because he didn't know if the belief would stand even being said aloud. How much did he really understand about his father? So many contradictions within the man and what he knew about him. He hoped that it was true and he enjoyed thinking that it was. He returned to his task, but then again he paused. Maureen's siblings, the Reardons, it seemed to him that there had been dozens of them, most of whom he'd never even met, they'd take a whole poster board of their own. He checked the assignment sheet and added rule number 3. No siblings listed at grandparent level or beyond. He was leaving dates blank now, Michelle could help with that later. It was the framework he wanted down before he talked with Robbie, who and what to put in and who and what to leave out. On down from Maureen to her parents Bea and Tom and he was done with that line. He smiled maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

Now for Ed. That line would be a little more complex. He had to include Rick's mom, Leslie, of course, and he should include Holly. She sent Christmas presents too and she'd been so close to Michelle in her early teen years that as Hope got a little older, Holly would be slipping into Michelle's stories of growing up more and more. He remembered standing outside of Holly's house waiting to give Michelle his very first Christmas present. It was that creepy photo of her, he wished he could remember giving her something nicer than that as first present now. Maybe a new pink sweater, cashmere maybe, soft to the touch, he could see it on her, his hands on it, yes, a nice tight… none of that now, he had work to do. He shook his head clear of the sudden visions he'd created for himself and returned to thinking about Ed. He really had been great with the kids and everything. It had been a good choice to move close to him when they left Springfield. They had a fresh start, but they weren't entirely alone and the kids had someone else they could entirely depend on. Any other of Ed's wives he had to include? No, he didn't think so and he had hit 3. He knew those rules would be helpful.

Suddenly he remembered Claire Ramsey. Michelle didn't think of Claire as her mother and he certainly didn't. She was more like a trouble causing distant relative. She had saved his life once, no matter how much worse she'd made things time and again since then. He suddenly realized with a start that Claire was the only grandmother his children might even have a chance to meet. Imagine that Claire Ramsey being your only image of a grandmother. He couldn't fathom it. He thought back to how Maria had been when he was growing up, not knowing what was probably always spinning in the back of her mind even then, she had been warm and caring, the perfect grandmother. He felt sorry that his children would never know a grandmother like that, even if it all had been a lie. Maureen really would have been the perfect grandmother. He sighed. With their luck if he didn't include Claire she'd pick that very night to suddenly show up again wanting to be supermom. He added Claire to his list with the notation birth mother.

Now he added Bert and Bill Bauer. Bill's proclivities were left out with no siblings rule, no Ed's half-sister Hillary, so no need for Hillary's mom. Bert had been wonderful, though very unreal to him. Michelle hadn't even really known her, just from old movies and photos and her Dad's stories, oh, and the wing of Cedars named in her honor. Robbie was Bert's namesake. He quickly made a note to that effect by her and Rick and Michelle's side was done.

He sighed again and prepared to turn to his own family.

This was going to be more interesting. He drew a sibling line from his own name and wrote in Pilar. He loved his little sister. She was the best one of them and he wished he could see her more often. When she was running along ahead of him, from behind Hope looked exactly like Pilar used to. He remembered the time Pilar stood there asking him, begging him for the truth and he had lied to her, lied to her about the family as Mama had made him promise to do. He wasn't going to make that mistake again with his own children. There were enough brand new mistakes to make in life without repeating the old ones. In his mind's eye he saw the stack of old news articles Pilar had found on the microfilm back issues of the _Springfield Journal_. It would be so much easier for his children to find stuff like that with everything online now. He couldn't keep them in the dark for too long and for once in his life he was glad his children's teacher wasn't the best. If she had been up on information literacy standards and collaborated with the school's teacher librarian, they'd have been doing real research on this and lord knows what Robbie might have found about his family. His eye settled back down on his own name and with deliberation, he crossed out Danny and wrote in Daniel. He still thought of himself as Danny, but he was very careful now, especially in business, to introduce himself as Daniel, emphasizing it. It was enough of a difference to push all the old problems, everything that had happened in Springfield to at least the second page of Google results and nobody without a very strong interest really went past the first page. He grinned. It gave him a technological clean slate. Also, when a little ways into the new relationship, he gave them permission to call him Danny, it made them think they had really connected. He had stumbled accidently on to this business edge and he liked it. But he couldn't avoid what came next any longer.

Mick. The next line should be for Mick. He thought for just a moment of creating a rule to avoid writing Mick down, something about deceased siblings maybe, he thought hopefully. No, he couldn't pretend Mick out of existence. Mick was his brother and despite of everything, in spite of all the trouble he was always in, in spite of how if he was alive and no better he would NEVER have let him near his children with all his problems, in spite of what he had tried to do to Michelle, in spite of what Danny himself MIGHT have done to Mick if he had violated her and then Danny had found out about it (he'd seen women brought into the emergency room at Cedars after a rape, looking so shattered and the mere thought of seeing that look on Michelle's face made him violently ill, he hadn't know her then, but they way he felt the first time he even saw her, if he had seen that look on her face, he knew that was all it would have taken), in spite of all that and a dozen other good reasons he had to forget about Mick, he loved him. Mick was his brother. He drew the line, wrote Mick's name for the first time in years, his date of birth, and with a sudden shake of the hand, his date of death. He suddenly heard his mother screaming at Michelle when they first met. She was shrieking about how not only Mick was gone, but so were the children he might have had, the wife he might have had. Mick's name, only connected to his and Pilar's, stood alone. With an effort he pushed his mind away from it. He drew a line down from his name and went on.

Miguel and Carmen came next. He quickly skipped ahead of himself and quickly wrote in his mother's parents names. Carmen had never spoken much of her parents. When she spoke about family she almost inevitably meant the Santos family. She had cut herself off from most of her past when she married Papa and never looked back. Her will was iron, even now though she hadn't improved, but she still clung on to life in the prison hospital, although the doctors said there was no chance she would recover. He still called once a week, just to check. He stared at his mother's name, feeling the loss yet again, the woman she had become (though he hadn't admitted it to himself until he saw her through Michelle's eyes) was such a far cry from the woman who had taught him to ride a bike, had kissed his childhood tears away, who he had loved and called Mama. Losing her through life was much harder than losing her to death.

The line came down from Miguel. The no siblings rule applied again though he would have to mention Uncle Fredrico when he talked to Robbie. Robbie was his namesake, too, and Robbie knew and loved Ray and remembered Tony. He'd have to talk about their father, but he didn't have to go on the chart. Then another line down Hernando and Maria and he was done. This would do for the chart and as they worked on it, he would have to talk to Robbie, explain who he had left out and why, tell him the rules he had made, but what was there wasn't too bad. It made sense and it wasn't lies. He grinned glad to be finished and glad the teacher hadn't asked for occupations. That would have been much harder to finesse and would have looked a little unbalanced to say the least, mob bosses and trigger men on his side and doctors and lawyers and housewives on hers. He grinned more pleased with himself. He'd have to show Michelle before he talked to Robbie, but this would really work. He heard a noise in the hall as the front door opened.

**

Hope Santos nearly fell back out the front door of her house as she stood in the doorway waving goodbye energetically to Megan and her mom. She loved, loved, loved Megan. She was her best forever friend, like Mommy and Aunt Drew, but she was glad to be home. (Aunt Drew always sent her the best clothes for presents from New York. She loved, loved, loved Aunt Drew.) She closed the front door and saw that the door to her father's study was open. She called out, "Mommy, Daddy, I'm home." She bounced inside and seeing her father she ran up to him and jumped into his arms. He hugged her tight. She was glad she didn't have to pick who she loved more Mommy or Daddy because it was always whichever one she was with. She loved how safe she felt in her Daddy's arms, how he called her his special girl, and how he smelled. She smelled him now as he easily swung her up and set her on the edge of his desk in front of him on top of some old papers he'd been working on. He did that whenever she came in so they could talk eye to eye. No other grown up did that and it always gave her a thrill how important it made her feel. "How's my special girl today?" Daddy asked her. She put on her serious expression. She had business to attend to. Megan was getting horseback riding lessons this summer and she wanted them too.

* *

Danny looked at his daughter as she did her best to look serious and business like. He curled a strand of her long dark hair around his finger and released it. He completed his earlier thought, "Brunette like me, Aunt Meta" and again he was struck by what a lucky man he was. He knew what was coming next. Michelle had told him that Megan was getting horse riding lessons this summer and he knew Hope would have made up her mind by now that she wanted them too. Riding a horse was one of the few athletic skills that he had never learned himself, not having much call for it in his Chicago neighborhood or Springfield for that matter, outside the Spaulding Stables where he'd never been invited. He wasn't sure if he trusted his little daughter on one of the big brutes. Michelle had pointed out that both Rick and Phillip rode beautifully, they'd learned at school, but Danny wasn't convinced and they were still talking about it. He listened to his daughter present her case that she would just die if she couldn't do what Megan did and if it had been anything he didn't view as inherently dangerous he might have caved right then. As it was, he put her off saying Mommy and he would have to discuss it. She started to pout and then changing tactics, cocked her head to one side and smiled at him, just like her mother would have when she wheedled him. Despite the difference it coloring, she looked so much like her mother. A thought he had never had before suddenly struck him cold. It wouldn't be too many years before she was trying that wheedling smile out on some young punk. For the first time ever, he felt sympathy for what he must have put Rick through when he fell in love with Michelle and he had a most uncomfortable feeling that whatever it was that Rick felt that had made him act out so would one day soon be paid back in spades.

**

Michelle Santos came to the door of her husband's study and looked in, wiping her hands on a dish towel. There he was at his desk, completely absorbed in their daughter. Hope was working him for riding lessons, she was sure. She recognized that tilt of the head and she idly wondered how long it would take Hope to overcome his resistance to the idea if she just let Hope work at him. He was hesitant about the idea of her riding, but he was so completely besotted by both their children, and herself she had to admit, that it was hard for him to deny any one of them something for very long if there was any way to get it for them. It was time for supper and she decided to break them up. "Hey, you two. Time for supper," she said. "MOMMY!" he daughter called, true joy filling her voice. Danny quickly swung his daughter down from the desk as her feet were already moving to run over and hug her mother. Michelle hugged her daughter back, "Now scoot. Go wash up. Leave your father alone about the riding lessons until we've had a chance to discuss it." She gave her daughter a pat on the backside to send her on the way as she danced off down the hall toward the stairs and her room. Michelle watched her go for a second and thought, "We'll probably be treated to a tiara or a tutu for supper." Hope's theory was if it was worth washing up, it was worth changing her clothes.

She turned back to her husband and he was smiling at her with that sexy smile of his. It was a good thing she'd kicked him out of the kitchen earlier, she'd never finished supper on time with even the distraction of his looking like that and he'd been doing a lot more than looking. She had only meant to tell him to come to supper from the doorway, but it was too much to resist and she found herself across the room and settled on his lap before she could think. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him and thought all is right with the world. "How could I be any happier? How could I love him any more than I do now?" But if past experience was any guide, she would, she loved him more and more each day. She heard THEIR children coming down the hall with possessive pride and she took him by the hand and led him into supper, as she had once lead him over to a certain white bed with pink sheets and an arch of roses. Even more joy filled her heart now than then, and she knew she loved him much, much more now.

**

Danny was pleased with the family tree. He'd give Michelle a chance to look it over and then they'd all work on it together after supper. He was looking forward to supper. Michelle had made Arroz con Pollo, his favorite dish and he'd been smelling it waft up the hall even as he had been thinking about less pleasant things. He let her lead him into supper, only pulling her up short next to him once to give her a whispered promise about "dessert" before they went in and sat down at the table with their children, the next generation of Bauers, the next generation of Santos, an untypical family in a typical house.


End file.
